Big Brother Is Watching You Commute

The state of Missouri is working on a plan to anonymously monitor the presence and movement of cell-phone signals on all 5,500 miles of state roads. By keeping track of cell phones, the thinking goes, state traffic agencies can monitor traffic in real time and respond by changing electronic highway signs, or sending text warnings to drivers heading into heavy traffic.

Global Positioning System chips and individualized serial numbers in the phones would allow tracking of specific individuals. The state says it will collect the data anonymously in order to post travel times and detours on automated signs. The plan does assume, however, that the contractor maintaining the service will sell traffic data to other traffic services and for other purposes.

Similar systems in other cities use sensors under the roadway or cameras on the roadside to monitor traffic volume, but those systems are more expensive. A program in San Francisco to monitor traffic using automated toll transponders comes with extensive privacy protections built in.

The system, which will be the largest of its kind in the country, will track cell phones even on rural roads where traffic is rarely an issue.

Those few privacy advocates who find it neither creepy nor Soviet, love the idea, especially its enormous potential for abuse.

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